$1.28M medical malpractice settlement reached in woman’s cancer death

The estate of a Sussex County woman has been paid $1.28 million after doctors were accused in a lawsuit of failing to detect her cancer.

Dina Wyckoff, a Franklin Lakes resident, died at the age of 34 in August 2016 after a battle with stage IV cancer. Her husband, Robert Wyckoff, filed suit six months after her death, saying a number of doctors failed to treat Wyckoff properly, resulting in her death.

An attorney for the estate, Paul da Costa, confirmed the settlement to NJ Advance Media on Tuesday. He declined to comment further. The two sides settled shortly before an October trial was set to begin.

Pathologist Dr. Seraphim Rimarenko, gastroenterologist Dr. Vincent J. Emiliani, St. Clare’s Hospital in Denville and the doctor’s private practices were named in the suit. Both doctors and the hospital denied the claims against them. St. Clare’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the lawsuit, Wyckoff first went to the emergency room St. Clare’s Hospital in Denville in 2013, complaining of severe pain in her abdomen; a endoscopy and surgery to treat a stomach ulcer took place that December, and a biopsy was sent out for examination.

Not enough samples were taken during the biopsy, and the samples returned a false negative for cancer, according to the lawsuit. Because of this false negative, what would have been a potentially treatable cancer became terminal, and resulted in Wyckoff’s death, according to the lawsuit.

Their treatment of Wyckoff was “negligent, carless and reckless and did deviate from accepted standards of medical practice,” it was stated in the lawsuit.

Had the cancer been found during the 2013 surgery, she would have had a chance of between 50% and 68% of living at least five years, da Costa said.